Saturday, April 16, 2005

Expert gives UFO presentation Monday

"For some reason, aliens seem to have an interest in the nuclear weapons of the United States."

Aliens? Maybe. UFOs? Certainly.
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12 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Reliable public opinion polls show that about half of Americans believe in UFOs, Hastings said."

This got me thinking about what it means to "believe in UFOs." I suppose it means believe that UFOs are real in some sense. The question is, in WHAT sense? If they really do have some kind of techno-hardware realty, that would seem to imply either "space aliens" or an advanced secret human technology that's way beyond anything in the public domain. If they're not hardware, then it would seem they must be visionary experiences or "mental projections" of some sort, even including so-called "mass hallucinations." (If they're visionary, then the Roswell UFO crash is basically an urban myth.) Is it possible they could be BOTH visionary and technological?
--WMB

7:35 PM
Mac said...

Have you read any books by Jacques Vallee?

10:53 PM
RJU said...

It is interesting you use the term "urban myth". I know exactly what you are trying to say, but it is funny how language gets twisted. I live pretty close to Roswell and the area around there is about as far from "urban" as anything could be.

1:12 AM
Anonymous said...

Yes, "Messengers of Deception" and a couple of others whose titles I don't recall offhand. Also, Bud Hopkins' "Missing Time" and some other abduction stuff, Whitley Strieber's "Communion," John Mack's abduction book (met him before he died), Internet UFO stuff. So I've been exposed to Vallee's theories, although I do suffer some confusion about exactly what his position IS. His appearance in "CE3K" seems to lend credence to the "aliens" notion. BTW, if some of this stuff is wrong, I apologize. It's been quite a while since I was really into the subject.

1:29 AM
Anonymous said...

rju -- Yeah, I know Roswell's not "urban." I just meant the generic term for weird stories that are sort of accepted as "true" by the general public without real verification. Not sure why they're called "urban" myths. I guess to distinguish them from the traditional kind. BTW, what's it like living near Roswell? I would guess the tourist industry is a pretty big thing around there.

1:35 AM
Ken said...

If UFO's are being operated by creatures "of human shape, only three feet tall", who says that they are extraterrestrials? Maybe things are even weirder than that...Properties of space-time can be quite bizarre...

12:44 PM
Anonymous said...

And it often sounds more like it's the UFOs that are operating the "creatures"!

1:57 PM
Mac said...

As a consultant to the film, Vallee remarked to Spielberg that the ET hypothesis wasn't likely to account for the mass of weird reports. (Specifically, I think he had reservations about the final scene, in which we discover the aliens are "merely" advanced beings from the stars.)

Vallee thinks UFOs play a prounounced psychical role -- that UFOs are part of a psychosocial conditioning system and that we have yet to see the mind behind the curtain . . . assuming, of course, there is one!

I very highly recommend "Dimensions," Vallee's most articulate expression of this idea.

3:14 PM
JohnFen said...

I go halfway with Vallee. I don't think they're part of a psychosocial conditioning system (or if they are, it's such an ineffective one as to be pointless, considering how long UFO/alien-like reports have been around).

Whatever they are, I think they've been around for at least nearly as long as man, and what they look like to man depends entirely on what man expects them to look like.

This isn't to say they don't have an independent physical reality. Even if they do, though, it still doesn't eliminate the possibility that man is creating them, sortof in the manner of magickal thought-projections.

3:34 PM
Anonymous said...

Mac -- Your summary of Vallee's position on UFO sounds right from what I recall from my reading of him. But frankly, I also recall when I'd finished "Messengers of Deception" thinking that Vallee had just presented an extremely verbally ingenious non-explanation. Hence my continuing confusion on the subject. Because if there is some kind of mysterious "mind" (or whatever) that is "projecting" UFOs "psychically," where does that leave us as far as ever figuring out what UFOs "really" are? In other words, if Vallee's "hypothesis" is correct, how would it ever even be possible to verify (or falsify) it?

7:49 PM
Mac said...

In Vallee's model, the alien intelligence originates from a "multiverse," and functions as a sort of thermostat, anticipating our technological and religious trajectory and insinuating itself into our mythology...in short, a control system. Vallee himself doesn't know if this system is indeed consciously directed at some level or if it's simply "blind clockwork"...

9:15 PM
RJU said...

W.M. asked about Roswell. There is not really any tourism in Roswell, except for skiers passing through on their way to Ruidoso and the Sierra Blanca ski resort. It is just a small dusty, high plains ranching town. There has been a small UFO museum there for awhile now. I don't think it actually gets much business, but since it has been around for a few years now, it must get a little. I have never stopped and checked it out, although I have passed through Roswell many times.

9:03 AM

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